Priyanka Sheth

The CityLabs Dialogue series is an attempt to understand our cities better from the lens of allied disciplines. In the second conversation of this series, Prof. Pratyush Shankar (Dean, School of Environmental Design and Architecture, Navrachana University, Vadodara) discusses with Priyanka Sheth (Architectural Designer, New York) a range of topics such as the role of water structures in redefining the regional geography; the association of step wells in Ahmedabad with caste, gender and space; and methods of representation and its politics, at length.

Priyanka Sheth is an architectural designer currently working at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners in New York and focuses on preservation projects for academic and cultural institutions. She has a Master of Architecture from Yale University and a Bachelor of Architecture from CEPT University.

Priyanka has a special interest in research related to preservation, traditional water infrastructure and the evolution of urban form in Indian Cities. Before coming to the US, she practiced as an architect in India and has taught design studios and urban history seminar courses focusing on Indian cities at CEPT University, India. She is one of the lead researchers for Stepwells of Ahmedabad, an on-going collaborative research project focused on historic subterranean water structures called stepwells, and a co-curator of related exhibitions in Ahmedabad as well as at the Yale Architecture Gallery and the Cooper Union. She is  also a co-author for the book; Stepwells of Ahmedabad: Water, Gender, Heritage which was published in Calmo editions in Madrid.